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Re: [ddlm-group] UTF-8 BOM

Let me see if I understand this correctly -- a user takes 2 perfectly good 
CIF2 files, edits each to clean up, say, some comments to keep straight 
where one begins and one ends, using a well-designed modern text editor 
that happens to put a BOM at the start of each file, concatenates the two 
files with cat to ship them into the IUCr, and suddenly they have a syntax 
error caused by a character that they cannot see!!!

To me this seems pointless when it is trivial for software to recognize
the character and handle it sensibly.

Regards,
   Herbert
=====================================================
  Herbert J. Bernstein, Professor of Computer Science
    Dowling College, Kramer Science Center, KSC 121
         Idle Hour Blvd, Oakdale, NY, 11769

                  +1-631-244-3035
                  yaya@dowling.edu
=====================================================

On Tue, 18 May 2010, James Hester wrote:

> I would be happy to call an embedded BOM a syntax error.
> 
> On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Bollinger, John C
> <John.Bollinger@stjude.org> wrote:
> 
> [..edited out...]
>  
>       In other words, almost anything other than what's currently in
>       the spec.  I'm OK with treating it as a printing character (ala
>       the current spec), though that is my least preferred
>       alternative.  Doing so is probably the worst choice for
>       compatibility with the kinds of manipulations we're discussing,
>       however.
>
>       If you don't treat an embedded BOM as a printing character or as
>       whitespace, and you don't ignore it (which I agree we should not
>       do), then does that leave any alternative other than to account
>       it an error?
> 
>
>       Cheers,
>
>       John
>
>       >   Regards,
>       >     Herbert
>       >
>       >=====================================================
>       >  Herbert J. Bernstein, Professor of Computer Science
>       >    Dowling College, Kramer Science Center, KSC 121
>       >         Idle Hour Blvd, Oakdale, NY, 11769
>       >
>       >                  +1-631-244-3035
>       >                  yaya@dowling.edu
>       >=====================================================
> 
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